Free renovations for 50,000 euros: proven by a real estate expert.

In France, home improvement work is often expensive for households. However, this real estate expert has found a trick on how to carry out beautiful home renovations without spending a single euro.

The real estate market has changed. Now, if buyers act correctly, they could find themselves in a strong position against home sellers or builders. Indeed, real estate today is in a sad state after glorious years of booming development. The number of home sales will fall by 20% in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to a study by MeilleursAgents.

The reason is that fewer French people are choosing to buy real estate while interest on loans continues to rise, with the average level rising from 2% at the end of 2022 to 4.05% in September 2023, according to the French Bank. Especially since inflation, estimated by Insee at 4.9% in September 2023, is reducing the purchasing power of French households and therefore cooling the fervor of potential buyers.

With the dwindling number of buyers, sellers are more inclined to make concessions. Especially when those sellers turn out to be new home builders. Construction is one of the industries that has been hit hard by the real estate market crisis, mainly due to the explosive rise in the cost of land for construction.

The less land available for development, the higher its price. It is on these builds from developers that buyers have a play card. To do this, you need to contact the developer of the apartment complex, not the company building one single house. "Developers have started extensive projects and are desperately looking for buyers to make them pay off," explains LimmoDeMed account owner LimmoDeMed, a real estate consultant, in his tweet.

He notes, however, that "developers will never sell properties at dumping prices because in residential real estate, the value of a home is determined by the selling price of similar residences nearby." Thus, the housing discount automatically reduces the price of all other properties in the residential complex. In other words, a developer will not sell a house worth €500,000 for just €450,000, but they can offer free works for the original price," he claims.

Some buyers have been able to get up to €50,000 of free improvements, such as installing a premium kitchen or using quality materials for walls, doors or stairs, he says. That way, the buyer gets a good deal and the developer is happy to have sold his share.